Her muscles ache. They ache to move, they ache to stand still, they ache because the weather is turning cold. She simply aches all over. Some of it is grief, but much of it is age. The warrior is slowly aging and for a moment as her eyes scan the back of her eyelids, Katniss wonders if she should try to conquer mortality. Perhaps she should find immortality magic and surround herself with it. Perhaps then she will not be afraid of ending this life with nothing to show for it. With Immortality, she has a lifetime to make an impact. But that will be another issue for tomorrow. Today, it seems, she simply needs strength to stand.
Today, today she must face Isra and reality. She does not want to face either, but she has no choice. Eyes look up at Isra as she towers over her fallen body. She’s not sure what she expects to see, but the harsh lines of her features are definitely not what she had thought to find. Perhaps she was looking for softness. So many things had happened since they had last seen one another. Both had given birth, the island had crumpled and faded away. The court was in relative peace. She had supposed her sovereign would want to catch up on life, to try and fix the wounds that buried deep within her soul. But she did not see softness when she looked at Isra. She saw the opposite. She saw the one who was ready for war, ready to lead with a heavy hand. It was a look Katniss was not prepared for.
She does not protest when she is asked to stand. It takes her a few long moments to gather her legs beneath her and stand, her body shaking off the grains of sand. Her body is so stiff, so tired, so willing to give up. But she stands tall for her sovereign. She stands with eyes reddened not only from her natural eye color, but also from lack of sleep, and stress, and tears. Instead of a softness to her features, they are rigid and unemotional. There is a void in Katniss that hadn’t been there before. A void that needed filling. What that filling needed to be was yet to be uncovered. Perhaps she needed to fill it again with love. Pehraps, even, she needed to fill it with aggression and war. Perhaps she should fill it with prayers to the gods. Katniss had never truly been religious, but perhaps now was the time to start.
For a long moment she stands, her eyes resting on those of her queen. For a long moment she says nothing. But then there is a call from the sky, a call that brings her eyes upwards to see Finnick as he sores closeby. Even through her depression, Finnick has never left her side. He has never faltered in his unwaivering faith in her and perhaps that is what keeps her going.
Eyes look back to Isra, the sun rising higher and higher in the sky. She looks back out over the water of the lack, back to the forest that had spit her out like chewed gum, and finally back on Isra. “Surely you have more important things to tend to today.” She didn’t need to be standing here, making sure that Katniss had the strength to stand. Wasn’t she just a number? Wouldn’t the world keep turning if she simply disappeared? She had so many other things she could be doing. She could be leading her people, hugging her daughters, making love to her lover. At least she had what appeared to be a normal, happy family. Isra had what she wanted and it angered her. Why did Isra get Eik and Metaphor had to be taken from her? None of it made sense and none of it was fair. But Katniss said none of this, only the flash of anger and resentment flashed over her already glazed eyes.
@Isra
